Menu

Tag Archives: character

It took me quite some time to finish them and get the details right. Now I am especially content with how their skin texture turned out, all healthy & sunkissed, and with a nice “hands-on” air about them ready to roll up their (not yet added) sleeves to do all they can for Faunia´s prospering community. They also look as they are quite able to tackle the demanding task of looking after the two teenagers Elka and Francis , eh? 😉

Concerning the story of Faunia, I am happy to tell you that it evolves more and more. Recently I attended a fantasy-writer´s work-shop and will keep on working on the story, sculpting more of it´s characters in clay / SuperSculpey along the way.

The two founders of Faunia: George – intelligent and well-mannered, a thinker and philosopher & his brother Mac, “the maker”, a supercool dude who can repair anything anywhere anytime – not a man of many words though 😉

I´ve been busy finally getting these two guys into a full-body-version in SuperSculpey. Do you remember? So far there were only their heads made from airdrying modelling clay:

George (or his head, to be more precise) was the VERY FIRST creature / character I ever did with modelling clay! I am getting in a nostalgic mood just thinking about that . His look was strongly influenced by the adorable Mr Tumnus played by the equally adorable James McAvoy in the first Narnia-movie. And from then on, I could not be stopped 😉 More and more curious creatures evolved from my mind and there will be more. Well, these two as you can see are still in a raw state and will need quite some more work and time to be completed. And I am still learning by doing which is great fun – I have realised I need smaler sculpting tools to get a better grip of the details for their tiny faces. I also realised having a wire armature in arms and hands needs to be thought over next time – these are the hands I prepared , stage 1 and stage 2 .

I thought I was extra clever and would prevent fingers breaking off…and wondered why others (I watched some tutorials again) rarely or never put any wiring in their maquettes´ hands…I now know why – the stuff comes out at times and places where you don´t want it.

Anyway, I must say I already am in love with Mac, but George also has his charms and I look foreward to keep myself busy with them.

Stay tuned and see what becomes of these nice fellows, I will keep you updated 😉

Hi , just a very hasty and quick update on how this little fellow is coming along…still some work ahead of me, but the fur is getting fluffier and his face has a bit more detail to it.

I visited his “relatives” in the zoo who inspired me for his character, and I enjoyed watching those cute creatures up close, jumping around and munching their veggies (although I must say I always feel sorry for any animal – especially wild ones – fenced in, no matter how good the intention).

I hope to complete him this weekend, and the paint job sure will be a great pleasure. His cap and some other little props will be added soon, too.

This post will be about two of my favourite topics: Dogs and dragons 😉

Last weekend, I had to say good-bye to my beloved “walkies”-buddy Nando, because he has found a new home and hopefully will be happy there. So this past week-end, I made a new friend – this is sweet Chicca, a very well-mannered and friendly dog with a cute moustachy face, quite tall, and with a bit of Schnauzer. We got along beautifully even though I do not know what “Sit!” and “Give paw!” in Romanian is (that´s where she´s from), as she does not know it in German – yet ;-).

And apart from making lovely new friends, I´ve been in Faunia, sculpting my clumsy three-headed school-dragon Tripodd…I herewith proclaim him almost finished!

There will be some tiny details to add, but all in all, that´s him! I imagine him well in summer when he takes the little fauns and centaurs and other creatures on his back after school to carry them to the pond for a thorough swim. He s a very distant cousin of Dougal, the pond-police”man” (ah waterdragon) and enjoys dog-paddling in the cool water.

After I have finished him , I will do some serious sketching to give you a clearer idea what all those crazy characters are doing in Faunia.

Until then – hang on, there will be posts to different creative topics ! 😉

Yes, you got that right. Yesterday I met Sir Richard Taylor. Of WETA Workshop in New Zealand. I met him in person. Really.

But let me start from the beginning. And be warned – this will be a blogpost maybe only enjoyable for those of you who take a strong interest in the world of Middle-earth and its peoples, the Lord of the Rings- and Hobbit-movies, creative costumes and a very special kind of escapism.

Meeting peoples of Middle-earth

This weekend, in Bonn (near Cologne) a very unique convention took place – the HobbitCon. I went. The whole Easter Sunday. It was my very first Con ever. It was a fun and slightly surreal experience. A day of being surrounded by stunning dwarves, beautiful elves, cuddly hobbits, one scary Azog, ringwraiths, fauns and all kinds of Tolkienish or non-Tolkienish fantasy characters, creatures, art, weapons, gems, costumes, books, Accessoires…

Meeting the „real“ Dwarves

Eight of the dwarf-actors were walking around in the area freely, hitting the bar in the evening, chatting with fans, telling hilarious stories about their time filming the Hobbit-movie. Those guys are so nice and had such a great time. I went to I think 3 of their panels and I especially remember the one with Jed Brophy (Nori), Dean O´Gorman (Fili), Stephen Hunter (Bombur), Adam Brown (Ori) and Mark Hadlow (Dori). During that hour where they answered questions from the audience and of course making fun of each other frequently, there were several occasions where those guys could not keep themselves standing upright because they laughed so hard , and so did we ;-). It was SO enjoyable

Meeting Sir Richard

All in all – the main reason I went to this event was getting a chance to meet Sir Richard Taylor. I admire him and his team SO much. They are so INCREDIBLY talented and creative, have such a vivid and inspiring imagination, such a great sense of humour and are so generous and open to their fans with giving information about what they do. So – as a well-informed fan, I know that he loves dogs as do many of his team members. They have a canine crew of 9 dogs owned by designers running around at WETA Workshop (sounds like heaven to me). Suddenly this crazy idea formed that I just would LOVE to give him a present he really might like and keep, and that I would really enjoy to make. There was no doubt: it just HAD to be a fun dog-biscuit-box with a cute and cuddly dog-sculpture on it. And I thought the best and safest occasion to hand it over was to attend his autograph session.

Well…. he liked the present very much. He asked me to hold it so he could take a photo of me and the box on his iphone, which he did. And he asked me to sign the box for him. Which I did. And told me he would place it in the cabinet they have at WETA right in front. ;-D

This is the Waldo Weta biscuit-box.

this is the bone inside (as there was also a bit of chocolate for Richard)

And he signed my brandnew WETA Artbook “Smaug – Unleashing the Dragon”and wrote a really nice “thank you ” note.

Here´s a bit more flesh to the bone:

I stood in line for quite a bit to hand over Waldo and speak to Richard. In the queue in front of me a blonde bearded dwarf-lady. Behind me her friend, a dark-haired and –bearded dwarf-lady. Surreal. And very amusing.

He took so much care to speak a few words with everyone who came for his autograph and would also see to it not to simply sign with his name but to write a few more personal words.

He was SO nice and polite and patient!

When I walked up to his table and said, after the greetings „I could not resist to sculpt you a present“ you should have seen his face, it was like „What in the world is coming now, what is this woman up to?!?!“ 😉 If I hadn´t been in such a state of dizzy-excited-staring-and-smiling-stupidly, I would have chuckled inwardly. I do now, though ;-)).

So when I got Waldo out of my bag, babbling how I knew of his love for dogs, his eyes grew large and he smiled and said „Oh he is gorgeous! What a lovely gift“. So I went on mentioning I had read in their newsletter that they have about 8 or 9 dogs at WETA Workshop, he smiled even more „Yes, I sure like having dogs around, they keep the pressure at bay“. At the moment, they have 9, the newest arrival is a young beautiful French Poodle. And then he went „Let me tell you a short story. You know Cher?“ and there the questionmark was in MY face, wondering „Yeah sure, but what does Cher have to do with dogs?“ 😉 „Well, Cher came visiting one day and we noticed her wearing a bracelet saying „I did not vote for Bush“. At WETA we are quite political, so we really thought her bracelett was a cool idea for a great statement. So Cher had small bracelets made for all the WETA dogs, and we took a picture of all the dogs wearing their bracelet and raising their paws to state that they did not vote for Bush, either!“ ;-D

Now isn´t that the cutest story??!?I would just LOVE to see that photo.

Now, if I were a young teenage faun-girl like Elka (please see my earlier post in cat. creatures and characters) I sure would have a crush on him, too 😉 .
And that is an important part of the story happening in my fantasy realm….but of course I cannot tell you any details right now, just as much…there will be a tragic love story, an adventure with a mysthical treasure to discover, strong friendships to form, surprising events to happen, family bonds to develop, some dreams to come true, some dreams to fail, unhealthy ambitions to mistrust, courage and loyalty to support and much much more…and all that will take place in a little community with a bunch of (mainly) goodhearted creatures of many different forms and types.